Soybean [Glycine max L. (Merrill)] is a major oil seed crop and is grown throughout much of the world. The United States alone produces over half of the world output. Soybean seed typically contains 40% protein and 20% oil and is used primarily for livestock feed and industrial purposes, in addition to human consumption. In North America, soybean suffers yield loss from the root and stem rot disease caused by oomycete pathogen Phytophthora sojae. In the United States the annual crop losses from this disease were valued to about 0.2–0.3 billion dollars (Wrather et al. 2001). Plant resistance to this and other sort of pathogens present a major problem to soybean growers.
Plant do not have circulatory or any auto-immune systems that are integral parts of mammalian defenses to pathogens and instead have evolved unique defense mechanisms to defeat invading pathogenic organisms. Plants rely primarily on active defense mechanisms to combat and resist damage from invading pathogens. These defense mechanisms are regulated by single race-specific disease resistance (R) genes that encode receptors to recognize specific pathogen derived ligand molecules (Dangl and Jones 2001). The genetic basis of this recognition phenomenon was described by Flor as a ‘gene for gene’ relationship in the flax and Melampsora lini interaction (Flor 1955). In recent years over 30 R genes have been isolated (Dangl and Jones 2001; Hulbert et al. 2001). Cloning of resistance genes and their corresponding avirulence genes has facilitated the demonstration of the in vivo interactions between products of resistance and avirulence genes as a proof for the Flor's hypothesis (Leister et al. 1996; Scofield et al. 1996; Tang et al. 1996 2000).
Several plant disease resistance genes that follow the classical gene-for-gene hypothesis (Flor, 1955) have been cloned. These genes can be classified into four major groups based on the structures of their protein products: i) proteins with serine/threonine kinase activity, e.g., Pto (Martin et al., 1993); ii) proteins with nucleotide binding sites (NBS) and leucine rich repeat regions (LRR), e.g. RPS2, N, L6, RPM1, Prf, M, I2 and RPP5 (Anderson et al., 1997; Bent et al. 1994; Grant et al., 1995; Lawrence et al., 1995; Mindrinos et al., 1994; Ori et al., 1997; Parker et al., 1997; Salmeron et al., 1996; Whitham et al., 1994); iii) proteins with leucine rich repeat regions and transmembrane domain, e.g. Cf2, Cf4, Cf5, Cf9, and Hs1pro-1 (Cai et al., 1997; Dixon et al., 1996; Jones et al., 1994; Thomas et al., 1997) and iv) proteins with leucine rich repeat regions, transmembrane and serine/threonine kinase domains, e.g. Xa21 (Song et al., 1995). The group carrying genes with NBS and LRR motifs can be sub-divided into two sub-groups. They are: iia) TIR NBS-LRR genes that carry an N-terminal TIR domain with homologies to Toll receptor of Drosophila and interleukin-1R receptor of mammals, and iib) non-TIR NBS-LRR genes that carry no TIR domain (Meyers et al., 1999). Most of the disease resistance genes cloned recently belongs to non-TIR group, which includes genes that confer resistance to viruses, bacteria, fungi, oomycetes, nematodes and aphids. TIR NBS-LRR type genes are most likely absent in the Poaceae (Meyers et al., 1999; Pan et al., 2000). Meyers and co-workers (1999) concluded that Arabidopsis genome contains approximately 200 genes that encode NBS sequences and are located in 21 genomic clusters and 14 isolated loci. Structural conservation among resistance genes from a wide range of plant species prompted several groups to identify putative resistance genes from Arabidopsis, potato, rice, soybean and wheat (Botella et al., 1997; Kanazin et al., 1996; Leister et al., 1998; Leister et al., 1996a; Yu et al., 1996).
Rps (Resistance Phytophthora sojae) loci have provided a reasonable protection to soybean crops against Phytophthora sojae over the last three decades. There are several physiological races of this fungal pathogen. The number of races is increasing rapidly. For example, in 1994 there were 37 recorded races of the fungus (Förster et al., 1994). Now the number is 45 (Abney et al., 1997). Schmitthenner and his co-workers (1994) concluded that P. sojae is a highly variable pathogen and exists in soil as a wide variety of virulence phenotypes to which most Rps genes are ineffective. They also concluded that, unless new Rps genes are identified or existing Rps genes are pyramided in single cultivars, resistance available in the present day cultivars might not be effective in controlling the disease in future.
At present, there are 14 Rps genes that confer race-specific resistance of soybean to different physiological races of P. sojae. These genes were obtained from different Glycine max lines, and mapped to eight loci (Anderson and Buzzell, 1992; Polzin et al., 1994; Schmitthenner, 1989; Burnham et al. 2003). Of these 14 genes, five are mapped to Rps1 and three to Rps3. The genetics of resistance conferred by Rps genes is well established. Recently, genetics of most of the avirulence genes (Avr) that correspond to specific Rps genes have also been reported (Gijzen et al. 1996; Tyler et al., 1995; Whisson et al., 1994; 1995). The interactions between these 14 Rps genes with the corresponding genes for avirulence in P. sojae follow the ‘gene-for-gene’ hypothesis (Flor, 1955).
To date no soybean resistance gene has been cloned. Lack of these genes has limited the progress towards understanding the signal transduction process involved in the expression of race-specific resistance in soybean. Isolation of this gene will allow us to investigate the mechanism of stable resistance governed by this most extensively used gene.